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Posted Jun 27, 2011 by Suzie Ford

The U.S. Supreme Court will be issuing a ruling later today with regard to violent video games. The landmark court case pits the state of California, which wants to limit the sale of violent video games to minors, against those claiming the law is a violation of free speech rights.

Several violent video games have made headlines in recent months. Bulletstorm, which features over-the-top violence including dismemberment, strong profanity and crude sexual innuendos was censored for the German market yet available in the United States.

And the recently released Duke Nukem Forever earned widespread cries of sexism from gamers and women's rights-groups across the Internet when it was revealed the game would feature a "capture the babe mode," requiring gamers to abduct women and give them a "reassuring slap" if they freak out.

UPDATE: The US Supreme Court has struck down the California law that was set to limit sales of violent video games to minors. The decision came down 7-2.

The Act does not comport with the First Amendment. Pp. 2–18. (a) Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like pro-tected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through fa-miliar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium. And “the basic principles of freedom of speech . . . do not vary” with a newand different communication medium. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wil-son, 343 U. S. 495, 503. The most basic principle—that governmentlacks the power to restrict expression because of its message, ideas,subject matter, or content, Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Un-ion, 535 U. S. 564, 573—is subject to a few limited exceptions for his-torically unprotected speech, such as obscenity, incitement, and fight-ing words. But a legislature cannot create new categories ofunprotected speech simply by weighing the value of a particular category against its social costs and then punishing it if it fails the test.